Both China and India are Amazing Stories of Poverty Reduction... We Should Stop Demonizing Them

"The fastest growth and sharpest reductions in poverty continue to be found in Eastern Asia, particularly in China, where the poverty rate is expected to fall to under 5 per cent by 2015. India has also contributed to the large reduction in global poverty. In that country, poverty rates are projected to fall from 51 per cent
in 1990 to about 22 per cent in 2015. In China
and India combined, the number of people living in extreme poverty between 1990 and 2005 declined by about 455 million, and an additional 320 million people are expected to join their ranks by 2015. Projections for sub-Saharan Africa are slightly more upbeat than previously estimated. Based on recent economic growth performance and forecasted trends, the extreme poverty rate in the region is expected to fall below 36 per cent."

These countries are massive success stories of the modern era. China, with its economic reforms in '79 and India with its reforms in the 90s have reduced had amazing results reducing extreme property. Instead of demonizing them, we should understand that it is world economy and that we have to work together. The world is not hopeless and people in both China and India escaping property that few in this country could understand is not a bad thing.

The economy changes and jobs move. However, jobs are also created and innovation still happens. We as a country have a lot going for us. We can solve our problems and compete globally. In fact, we are currently solving our problems and we are very competitive globally. We don't have to keep demonizing other societies that "take our jobs."

I should make a note that the UN is measuring "absolute poverty here" THey define that as "a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services." It translate into living off of less then $1.25 a day. The level of poverty in India is far different then any type of poverty here.

1. their rates go down and ours go up - while our corporate masters get ever richer nt

3. That is actually not true...

Rates, as judged by UN standards, are still very, very, very low. They are measuring "absolute poverty" here. What they are measure is the percentage of the population that lives on less then $1.25 a day. That is the number they come to to take care of basic needs.

27. The jobs coming back are very few, and most are very low paying. Your argument is dying here.

37. Those "jobs" aren't coming back...

However, new jobs will and can be created. The problem with the labor market right now is that skill sets don't match up with the jobs that are there. There are actually companies that are struggling to find workers right now.

Even with all that said, unemployment is falling and things are getting better.

Run the math. Count up every last company that says they are struggling to find workers. Count up the number of jobs. Now count up the number of unemployed. Compare the two. Even if every last American got every marketable skill known to humanity, most unemployed would stay unemployed. Do the math.

Look at our job growth. Compare it to the growth of our working class population. The former is STILL the smaller number. That means we're putting more workers on the market than there are jobs being created. And MOST of those jobs are low paying.

The jobs that are being created, what few they are, are demanding higher productivity from workers. They are, as a result, leading to a reduction in the need for workers. You want to see what this has led to, over the last few decades? Here ya go.
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The "skillsets mismatch" argument is a LIE. We have tons of engineers, especially computer engineers, who are out of jobs. Here's an exercise for you - look at the jobs where companies are saying they're "struggling" - notice how they're not PAYING more? If you have a shortage of workers, the pay always goes up. The pay ain't going up.

Finally, unemployment isn't falling - people are simply running out of benefits and are not being counted.

68. Here...

And no shit, if you are coming from having less shit, you are going to think less shit is basic. That is all your "poll" basically says. America's are going to consider more things basic while people in China are going to consider more things basic. THey are polling apples and oranges.

108. Come live in Northeast Ohio, specifically from 1975-present, and you'll see why.

It's hardly "hysteria". The "Rust Belt" suffered tremendously as a result of offshoring; not just in plant closure, but depletion of the secondary businesses that depended on the living wage incomes of those workers.

"Free Trade advocate" is hardly a personal attack for some, who wear it proudly on their sleeves.

109. That's a label

No, one does not have to be "free trade advocate" to question the necessity of this hysteria, or whether there is a scapegoat here.

What of people whose companies are still functioning due to outsourcing? Ask them if they should give up their jobs?

This is allowing the divide and conquer theme, thinking that "the Chinese" are easy to demonize and that no one will give a crap about them.

We need to unionize internationally, not demonize the "other" workers. We used to allow that within the US, now people are falling for this same thing but figuring they can easily promote hate of foreigners.

110. Point to where anyone's demonizing the workers. I'm certainly not.

I've seen Manufacturing Landscapes. The workers put up with brutal hours, stringent QA checks, militarized cordoning in groups, pollution, e-waste, etc. . . . all for the privilege of living as a slave. We actually feel sorry for the workers. It's the executives on both sides of the fence that need to be taken to task; not only for shifting labor overseas to make a greater buck, but advocating slavery to the nations they shift the work to.

Nobody's "demonizing" workers. We're demonizing the practice itself, which has brought more hardship to every nation involved while inflating the coffers of the overlords.

There's also this buying into the logic of the NEED to offshore labor. We're talking the differences between mere "profit" and "ever-competitive Mega Profit". A system that depends on perpetual wealth, growth, resources, education, etc in a world where none of that exists . . . well, I don't need to tell you how that's going to end.

132. What are you talking about...

Using POLLING data is no means to measure this. You are polling what people think. Of COURSE people are going to think things are better in China because things SUCKED before. OF COURSE people are going to think things are worse in the US, because we are in an economic downturn. How does a gallup poll prove anything besides a measurement of what people think in two different societies.

35. You can play with the relative numbers some...

The measurements are never prefect. You can always rework how you measure absolute poverty. The problem with reworking the numbers is that, it just becomes more difficult because relative purchasing power does vary a lot even within a country.

While I am a social scientist at heart and love measurments , I have seen poverty in both the United States and India. There really is no comparison. While $1.25 does buy more in different places, the social welfare net in this country does cover a much higher figure then $1.25 a day. Even adjusted for relative purchasing power, poverty in India is on another scale. I am again not saying that we shouldn't be doing more. We need to build a bigger middle class. The problem with our economy is on the demand side and the best means to solve that is to bring people into a middle class. We have lots of work to do, but India moving in the right direction is not a bad thing.

36. Let's get this straight. China and India are free to get out of poverty. They're NOT free

39. I don't even understand what that means...

I am saying that it isn't a zero sum game. China and India gaining a middle class and getting people out of living under $1.25 a day is not what is hurting or hurt our economy. In fact, it is a good thing.

143. Correction: MOST new jobs created pay very little.

150. Yes.. we have to follow policies that help the American worker..

One of those policies is not isolation. We are coming out of a recession. It is sort of expected that most new jobs will pay less, until the employment rate drops further and the labor market becomes tight.

162. "When people make more then $1.25 a day, we can sell them things. "

What things can we sell them? We barely make anything here at all anymore. What are we going to do, take the cheap goods we buy from them now and sell them back to them at a profit? Good luck with that one.

149. I realize that

My point is that it is relative. Poverty in the US compared to poverty in other nations is apples and oranges.
Some would say that poverty in the US would be a live of luxury elsewhere. Having a few deaths from starvation or health problems aggravated by malnutrition is the American version of extreme poverty. $1.25 goes a lot farther in India and China than it does here. That does not make any of those conditions justifiable.
My opinion is that we should be able to have a better quality of life for less money but our priorities are screwed up. I'm glad that there are places that are making some progress.

91. We can't buy as much for $1.25 as you can in an underdeveloped country.

Much of the money we pay for food is for the packaging and the transportation of the food. In less developed countries, people eat differently than we do. They buy more in markets from farmers and less from corporate supermarkets.

If you live in an American city, you either hook your sewer line into the city sewers and pay high water and sewage charges or your house is declared uninhabitable and you are not permitted to live there.

Most Americans who are poor live in cities where they can't just dig wells for their water.

If you want to work in the US, you have to bathe and wear fresh clothing.

Many homeless people in the US live on close to $1.25 per day. But Americans look away and don't realize how little those people with the carts full of bottles get for all their work collecting recyclables.

4. ....

The noise was deafening and air in the factory in northern Gujarat was so thick with cotton dust it was like a snowstorm at night.

Women and girls, some no more than 10 or 11, fed machines with raw cotton picked from the nearby fields.

It is a process known as ginning - one end of a commercial supply chain that ends up as clothes and textiles in high street shops around the world. Globally, annual revenues from the industry are measured in the trillions of dollars.

Many household-name retailers concede they do not know exactly how the cotton they use is farmed and processed. Yet, for years, labour activists here have campaigned for their help.

21. And many of those workers will die of "brown lung"

As workers here once did. But so far, in developing countries, workers have had little power to affect these working conditions. I'm sure China is killing a lot of coal miners, too - evil bastards like Don Blankenship would kill more Americans in a heartbeat, if we'd stop Massey Energy from being "bothered" by MSA, OSHA, EPA, and the miner's unions.
But who cares, if we job it out to China, and kill a few score of Chinese a week? We ought to friggin start, before we all devolve to the level of these poor souls.

18. Well, for India and CHina we export a lot of products...

"India was the United States' 17th largest goods export market in 2010.

U.S. goods exports to India in 2010 were $19.2 billion, up 16.9% ($2.8 billion) from 2009, and up 738% from 1994 (the year prior to Uruguay Round). U.S. exports to India account for 1.5% of overall U.S. exports in 2010.

U.S. exports of private commercial services* (i.e., excluding military and government) to India were $9.9 billion in 2009 (latest data available), 2.1% ($213 million) less than 2008, but 712% greater than 1994 levels. Other private services (education), and travel categories accounted for most of the U.S. exports in 2009."

Do we CURRENTLY import more then we export? Yes. But that doesn't mean trade doesn't help us. We continue to grow our economy and create jobs with innovation. Simply because they are getting richer doesn't mean we are getting poorer. It isn't a zero sum gain.

If you want a path to real property, cut this nation off from trade. We will suffer, like North Korea is currently suffering.

54. Glad you brought that up.

Your analogy highlights a key difference - trade between NY and NJ is much more "free" than trade between the US and China, or the US and India. It is much easier for labor to move within the US than for labor to move across the globe. In particular, there are legal barriers that prevent more highly trained foreign professionals from coming to practice in the US. This nature of our trade agreements (they are not "free" trade agreements, "free" is a bogus PR term in this case) causes wages for some kind of work to go down while wages for other kinds of work are propped up.

87. Powerful lobbies prevent it.

Professional elites are often politically well-connected and successfully seek protection for themselves while they lobby for trade agreements that pit middle class workers against foreign competition. Free trade in physicians and medical services could save Americans $80 billion to $100 billion a year. This is ten times the estimated benefit of NAFTA.

86. OMFG I am weak from laughing so hard. That was unbelievably, hilariously harsh.

93. But we import far more from these countries than we export -- even at their cheap labor prices.

And the export and production figures of the US are suspect because we calculate them, as I understand it, based on the value of the finished products, and those finished products can and do contain parts manufactured in other countries.

There can be no denying that Americans overall are poorer than they were 40 years ago. We have not had waves of foreclosures like those we are having now since at least the 1930s.

We will change our trade policies sooner or later. Our current "free trade" policies may be working for India and China, but they are not working for ordinary Americans. If we had tax and welfare policies that compensated American workers for the lost jobs and income, then there would be less resentment. But as long as we reward the rich for creating jobs in China and India, we won't have job creation here -- at least not enough of it.

Just recently, I went into the 99 cents store early in the morning. In the line in front of me was a homeless man with less than a dollar to spend. He was ready to cry because he had enough to pay for a small sack of candy for his breakfast, but did not have enough to pay taxes. Fortunately, he did not have to pay tax. He was so incredibly happy when the cashier told him there would be no tax.

What can you buy for $1.25 in the US? A candy bar, maybe. Maybe a couple of tomatoes. At certain times of the year you can buy more, but really, it is very hard for unemployed Americans right now.

31. You said, "We don't have to keep demonizing other societies that "take our jobs.""

Translation: you wish Americans would shut up and just let our jobs get taken.

Well, guess what, pal, as you can see all around you in this thread, WE ARE NOT SHUTTING UP.

You, sir, are seeing the birth pangs of a revolution against the pro-offshoring argument. America is a powder keg of opposition to your argument and we will not be cowed, we will not be talked down to, we will not be intimidated, and we will not stop until the vampire that is globalism is forced into the light of day where it will perish.

46. No one is trying to "cower" you... However, you are living in a dream world.

Markets change. The world changes. Change with it or get left behind.

It isn't a bad thing. In fact, on the whole it is a great thing. We benefit, they benefit. It is a win-win for everyone, on a bigger scale. Will there be losers? Certainly. We have to do what we can to provide education and a means of transition. But the world is not returning to 1950.

70. We won't be over 20% of the world's GDP once we do that... NT

131. Provided you give up any pretense of not being the bad guys.

"We are strong, and we are going to use our strength to ensure that our living standards remain high, even though that forces yours down" - which is what you are advocating - is a perfectly viable position for America to take.

98. All the education in the world isn't going to trump "Cheap" in the eyes of a CEO.

I mean, free trade is great if you think nothing of the consequences that fall on many of this country's workers as a result. What about pending American underemployment? Movement of labor to other nations since the 1970s has yielded nothing but hardship, forclosure and downward mobility to American workers. The visual and economic evidence is overwhelming, you don't need statistics to work that out. Real wages for the middle/working/poor have not risen since 1979.

61. Does it matter?

Going from subsistence farming to working in a factory may mean they earn a few cents a day, but are their lives any better?

I say this as the granddaughter of two farmers. My grandparents worked hard dusk to dawn from the time they were children, but they have always been happy. They're still healthy and strong, too.

Will the Chinese workers who move into slave labor camps and do menial tasks like gluing one part in place for 32 hour shifts look back fondly on these days? Will they be healthy, even into their 30s? Many are already sick and injured, with disabilities more common to old age. What will they do when they get older with broken bodies and no skills to care for themselves?

My grandparents built a life and a home, working the land and raising animals. What will these Chinese slaves have to show for all of their hard work? The stuff they make ends up in landfills when Americans get bored with it or it breaks in a year or two.

101. It did happen with the US and the west

We had that time in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Not that it is pleasant, but it is the basis of our lifestyle today.

So I don't feel right condemning others for putting themselves forward into the modern era. I do wish the Chinese had more of a democracy, though. However that may come about as their lifestyle gets better.

84. Brent is finding out the hard way that nobody's buying that "offshoring = win for America" bullshit

74. China's population will peak and start to shrink due to their disregard for pollution in an attempt

to become the United States of the 21st Century, thus concentrating wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Eventually there will be 6 Chinese people who will own 1/3 of the world's wealth, and they won't live in China.

99. Having to go to sleep isn't me saying your arguments are correct or founded

90. The problem is that as their poverty decreases, ours increases.

As the difference between the living standards of rich and poor in the underdeveloped countries become less severe, ours is increasingly devastating the fabric of our society.

It should be possible to alleviate the poverty in India and China without increasing poverty here, but that would take a little thought and sacrifice on the part of our wealthiest citizens. So far they have been unwilling to share the losses that their outsourcing and importing have meant for working Americans.

115. Well said. "It should be possible to alleviate the poverty in India and China without increasing it

here, but that would take a little thought and sacrifice on the part of our wealthiest citizens. So far they have been unwilling to share the losses that their outsourcing and importing have meant for working Americans."

You are right. And IMHO the way to do that is the way that advanced progressive countries have done it. They do not allow their "wealthiest citizens" to be "unwilling to share the losses" of a globalized economy.

The US' per capita GDP is $46,844. That of the EU is $30,388. Our problem is not that the US does not generate enough wealth for the middle class to prosper, it is that we don't force the "wealthiest citizens" to share the tremendous wealth that our country generates.

European economies generate 30% less wealth per capita than ours does, but their societies and middle classes are much healthier than ours because they distribute that wealth much more equitably than we do. I haven't met any European who is willing to trade their society (with its high/progressive taxes, strong unions, effective safety net, national health care and better education system, but with lower average incomes) for life in the US (with its regressive taxes, weak unions, ineffective safety net, limited national health care, ineffective education system, but with significantly higher average incomes).

It is, as you say, "possible to alleviate the poverty in India and China (and in other poor countries) without increasing it here, but that would take a little thought and sacrifice on the part of our wealthiest citizens." It is already happening in advanced progressive countries.

117. Another difference.

In recent years, Europe's economy has been about as productive as that of the US in terms of output per hour. The difference in per capita GDP is largely due to Europeans choosing to take their productivity gains in additional leisure time, while the US opts for higher income.

94. This is good news but clearly there are other associated problems..

that have increased as poverty decreased. On balance I do believe the good outweighs the bad but I would not call China and India "massive success stories". They have tremendous problems relating to environment, worker saftey, worker rights, wealth inequality, etc. We need to put pressure on them to implement reforms or this situation could get much worse.

95. Bookmarked. Bil Moyers had a great show recently on how progressive countries

encourage global poverty reduction while at the same time promoting employment and income equality at home. To summarize it: Our economic problems are not caused by "others" but by actions that "we" have done to ourselves - repeatedly cutting taxes for the rich, weakening our unions, slashing our safety net, deregulating to the point of absurdity, etc.

Countries that have not cut taxes for the rich, weakened unions, slashed safety nets and recklessly deregulated have weathered the Great Recession relatively much better than Americans have with stronger economies and more equality, even though they trade with "poor" countries at a much higher level than we do.

In Europe they explicitly trade more with the Third World as a part of their global development strategy designed to help the poorest. Over the last 20 years it has been successful, as the UN's statistics show, while domestic economies in these progressive countries have continued to provide good jobs and fair pay despite the global recession (which was caused by the US' financial industry, not by poor Third World workers).

96. It's nice to know someone is benefitting by doing what used to be our jobs

So in essence, we know our jobs were good ones.

Like I said, it's nice to know.

But it would be nice if everyone benefited without anyone losing out. I wouldn't ever begrudge people anywhere being lifted out of centuries of dirt poor poverty. It's being forced to be poor in spite of working as hard as you can that's wrong.

Manufacturing is now underway at Lincolnton Furniture in North Carolina.
By Sopan Deb
Rock Center

The United States may be on the verge of bringing back manufacturing jobs from China.

Harold Sirkin, along with Michael Zinser and Douglas Hohner (all experts from the Boston Consulting Group – a leading management consulting firm), says that outsourcing manufacturing to China is not as cheap as it used to be and that the United States is poised to bring back jobs from China. The three consultants first reached this conclusion in a recently published study titled “Made in America, Again: Why Manufacturing Will Return to the U.S.”

Many companies, especially in the auto and furniture industries, moved plants overseas once China opened its doors to free trade and foreign investment in the last few decades. Labor was cheaper for American companies – less than $1 per hour according to the BCG report. Today, labor costs in China have risen dramatically, and shipping and fuel costs have skyrocketed. As China’s economy has expanded, and China has built new factories all across the country, the demand for workers has risen. As a result, wages are up as new companies compete to hire the best workers.

“The tilt is now getting lower,” Sirkin says. “We think somewhere around 2015 it’ll look flat and may start to tilt in the U.S. favor at that point in time.”

So this form of hysteria was never needed. Instead of looking forward and being innovative, these are the people who whine "where are the jobs?" rather than getting off their duffs and doing something. And if you mention that, you are "un-American."

111. Contrary to the economic propaganda piece you link to

Jobs are not "coming back" to the USA. The headline contradicts the text of the piece, which quotes some hacks at an infamous offshoring consulting group that some unspecified jobs "may" return to the USA -- not that any jobs have actually returned to the USA.

So this form of hysteria was never needed. Instead of looking forward and being innovative, these are the people who whine "where are the jobs?" rather than getting off their duffs and doing something.

"Whine"? I know in the past you've said you are a corporate attorney, but I didn't know you were also Phil Graham.

127. Apple's Jobs to Obama: "jobs aren't coming back" to U.S.

As long as they have workers living on the factory premises in China, whom they can exploit for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and rouse in the middle of the night to keep up with their precious orders, those jobs are not coming back.

167. Someday that won't be the case

And as that article said, the Chinese are getting to be only 15% less costly to employ. At some point it will catch up to the transport costs. Steve Jobs is not the only one who knows anything, and he could be wrong.

107. I've heard this BS over ten years ago, coming from a friend who is RW

global corporations are exploiting these countries. The argument is that we'll all being doing just swell by leveling out the playing field. But, what really is happening is corporations are moving to these countries for their loose environmental and labor policies. In China, you've got people working up to thirty hours a day, making about 30 cents an hour. Some are brought in from the country and put into dorms sharing with eight people or more. You have laws-up to twelve years in prison-for anyone attempting to form a labor union. There's a reason why some companies have put up nets to catch those wanting to commit suicide.

And those same corporations would love to come back to america, if they could do the same damn thing here. And the repugs and you free traders, are talking up about how total deregulation of those sociopathic companies would allow them to come back and do the same thing to us as they have been doing to other countries.

I don't even call the COC, US, there's nothing american about them. They are just whores for global corporations. They could care less if americans suffer, become slaves or if the environment is contaminated by their global friends. As long as they push the "free market" bullshite and make masses of moolah off the backs of all labor.

122. China and India are separate cases that shouldn't be lumped together.

China has made great strides in eliminating extreme poverty, famine, disease, illiteracy. But it was done first under communist dictatorship and then under corporatist-capitalist-communist-dictatorship, or what ever the f*ck they call what they are now. It's nice that they feed everybody but the system is politically repressive in the extreme. And now it looks to me like China is turning into a nation of slaves. I don't like it and I don't want to be complicit in it. I was disgusted by China when I was a kid and they were more communistic, and I'm even more disgusted by it now. Of course the people of china ought not be demonized, but the government deserves it.

India has much more freedom and democracy. Their democracy suffers from bribery and corruption, but whose doesn't. India has made some strides in eliminating famine and hunger, but disease and sanitation are still problems. India is gaining wealth through it's relationship with the US and other economic partners. But unfortunately India suffers from extreme wealth inequality, much more so than in the united states. The income gains of the last 20 years are contributing to a slowly growing middle class. But most Indians are being left out or are falling further into poverty. So what's to demonize? It is what it is.

123. Both China and India are Amazing Stories of Corporate Exploitation.

Your argument is logically comparable to the argument that the American slaves were better off than their hunter and gatherer brethren left behind in Africa because the slaves got free meals and learned a new trade.

148. You have a unique talent for twisting another person's words to create a straw man.

I never compared the people of India to slaves. I compared the attitude of corporate exploiters to a hypothetical argument that might be put forward by a slave owner to excuse his exploitation of Africans by implying that his "slaves" were better off under his "care" than they were back in Africa.

I am well aware of India's proud democratic tradition going back to 1947 when India became independent of British colonial rule.

Since implementing their constitution in 1950, India has done much to improve the lot of the lower classes of their traditional caste system.

I am also acquainted with an Indian family living in the US. Very nice people, very intelligent, and tending liberal.

142. No. I am not...

I am praising the elimination of extreme poverty.

Government has an important role to play in the world economy and I am not an advocate of "Laissez-Faire" capitalism. The sort of extreme wealth inequality that we see in the US is something that government should have a role in correcting.